Chapter 4: Trading

"Tou-san. I want to try trading."

"Alright, you want to try some..? Eh?"

My father made a surprised face as he turned his office chair in my direction. It is early in the morning so he should be looking for the changes that happened in tonight's stock market. From what I saw, he is in the Currency Market, taking advantage of the fact that the Dollar Rate is going higher at a stable rate.

It is in this way that most investors do their job. Even if the returns are small, the risks are small, too.

"Did I hear that correctly? You want to try your hands at trading?"

"Um."

"This… This might be a bit early for you."

I can tell that tou-san is against it. I knew this would happen, but I could still not prevent my mood from worsening. Hundreds of millions of Yen are at stake here!

Knowing this predicament can't be resolved quickly, I took out my biggest trump card–

"Please?"

–puppy eyes.

With this, I am sure that tou-san can't resist it. My study of those spoiled kids back in school is not for naught. They do this whenever they ask for something and get whatever they want, scot-free.

I saw him sighing before he said:

"...Alright. I will open an account with a few hundred dollars in it. If you ever spend all of it, I won't be giving you capital again any time soon, okay?"

"Um!"

For once, I felt thankful for those immature brats. I will pardon them for stealing my pencil the other day. After all, I took down my tou-san using their tricks. Even I have no confidence to succeed with this plan.

After fifteen minutes, tou-san finished setting up the account. He brought me to the computer screen and placed me in his lap. There, I saw dozens of numbers that could instantly send a normal eight-year-old to dizziness. It did not affect me, though.

While the UI Interface is not as clean as the ones in 2022, I understood the fundamentals of it.

"Listen to these few instructions first, Nobu-kun. This tab here, the one pointed out by the cursor, is the Market Tab. You can select the stock markets…"

Tou-san discussed everything that a newbie has to know about the application. Then again, I am thankful that it is currently 2012. Things are more simplified than the ones used in the '80s and '90s. At that time, it would be simply impossible to convince tou-san due to how complex it is.

Half an hour had passed. By this time, he is already looking forward to what I am about to do.

'That.'

I recalled something from my diary. I wrote the detailed events of ten years later in it during the time I could not gain tou-san's approval.

'There's a mini event that lasted until tomorrow.'

I clicked on the Market Tab and switched to the Real Estate Market. It is just as populated as the Currency Market since now is the time for those land prices to soar.

'Heh. They would not predict that the market will take an impact from America's mistake.'

Simply put, real estate would sharply drop tomorrow due to the faulty handling of the US Government when it comes to their housing loans. It did not cause a bigger tide as they immediately took action to take out the fire, but the damage was still done.

"A leverage..? Wait–"

I swiftly selected the 50% leverage before betting my everything–three hundred fifty dollars–to short those stocks.

"Wait! Nobu-kun, what did you just do?!"

Seeing tou-san's agitated expression, I replied, "Books, tou-san. It taught me that their handling of houses is wrong."

I spit out the best excuse that I could offer.

"Nobu-kun. Making hasty decisions is wrong. The book might be correct, but what you did is not necessarily right. Did you consider the consequences of your actions? I believe that you have learned basic risk reduction from my books."

His scolding continued until night time.

For the first time, I got scolded. This feeling of guilt inside my chest is discomforting. Add to that tou-san's stern face, I could not help but doubt my decision for a second. But, I disregarded that feeling as it is definitely the right one.

"It is my feeling, tou-san. I trust it."

I decided to conceal my future knowledge as a gut feeling. I could not explain it otherwise.

"Sigh… I understand. I hope that you have learned something out of this."

"Um."

*****

Seiji massaged his forehead while thinking of his son's rash decision. 17,500 Dollars. That's what he has to pay in case his son's decision is wrong. He did not expect Nobu to use the maximum leverage and bet on the losing side.

At first, he thought of using 350 dollars to educate his son. Yes, it is an expensive lesson, but one that he must do for his genius son.

He planned to let him try once he saw that he is very determined in the trading industry. If he fails, that would discourage him from trading and focusing on more important things within his reach. Suffering failure is good for a genius. On the off chance that he would succeed, it would teach Nobu something, too.

But then, he made that leverage. One has to know that Seiji's total net worth is three million dollars, which is equivalent to 386 million yen.

They are a millionaire family. If not for it, Seiji would not extravagantly use that amount just for his son's single lesson.

In the end, he resigned himself to the possibility of losing more than a hundredth of his net worth. He loves his son so much that he could not blame the kid for it.

"I won't tell this to her." He mumbled with a wry smile. "I will definitely be going to get my ass beaten once she knew this."

In the first place, his intuition is what told him to acquiesce to Nobu's request. This is his pride as a trader, one that allowed him to profit in the previous 1998 Asian Market Crisis. He made his net worth go a hundredfold at that time due to his decisions.

"Hm?"

Just as he was about to sleep, he saw something shocking. Right at this moment, 1:23 AM, he saw the market chosen by Nobu go down in a spike.

"Huh?"

He gently massaged his eyes a few times before verifying what he is seeing.

"What…"

In the "Balance" display, he saw the thousand dollars going into nineteen thousand dollars immediately.

"Shit. Shit. Shit."

His hands started trembling–not out of shock–but due to excitement. It became cold swiftly while he started operating his computer. Of course, it is done in a way that would not wake up his wife.

"My goodness… Nobu-kun, you inherited your talent from your tou-san..!"

*****

"One hundred and fifteen thousand. In five hours."

Tou-san rested his hands on my shoulders the moment I got out of my room. I just woke up and was planning to drink some water, but what greeted me is tou-san with baggy eyes. Did he stay up all night?

I think he did.

"I placed all your earnings in the first minute into it and managed to earn more. I used leverage once again and I…"

"Tou-san, calm down."

"I… right."

With that, I managed to stop him from spewing out bullet-speed words.

"What happened?"

"Fu… You made the right choice. The real estate market in America spiked down."

He began to explain what happened that night. When he first saw it, he immediately reacted and placed all of the earnings into the bet and made one more leverage, allowing him to turn those eighteen thousand dollars twice its amount. He took advantage of it several times before it bloated into its current amount.

As expected of the mini-event. This is the only remarkable appetizer that happened before the main dish. Skipping on it will be very painful for the current me. Fortunately, things worked out on my end.

Of course, he explained all of this with relatively simple terms that an eight-year-old kid could understand.

"The government made their moves and stopped the damages. If they are late to react, I would have made more."

After saying that, he made a solemn expression before he squatted to my eye level.

"Nobu-kun, you must have realized this. You are different from other children."

"Um."

"The things that you are learning are advanced by a few years."

"Um."

"You are a genius, Nobu-kun. Still, we hope that you can enjoy your childhood differently. Did you make some friends?"

"Um."

"It's alright if you did n–what?" He paused. "You made a friend?"

"That's right. I have a friend! I always meet her in the playground in front of the ice cream store."

"That playground..? Is it the pink-haired girl?"

I saw him fall into contemplation before coming back to normal.

"That's good..! I thought you can't enjoy a normal childhood…" He said emotionally. "I will keep this a secret from your kaa-san, so can you keep it like that too?"

Tou-san should be pertaining to my earnings. I am sure, with a hundred percent confidence, that he would be scolded by kaa-san once this event gets to her ears. Giving a few hundred bucks to a kid is an irresponsible and absurd move, after all.

"Um."

*****

'I wonder what they are hiding.'

The in-charge of the Akasaka Household, Akasaka Eri, became suspicious of the father-son duo the past few weeks. Sometimes, she would see her husband saying "That's my son!" all of a sudden. He would briefly smile while thinking about something related to Nobu, their eldest son.

'I am curious… but I'm glad to see them happy.'

Due to her position–one that is only two levels below CEO–she became busy at some specific times. While there are times when she can spend more time with her family, there are some times when she feels insufficient.

She had a talk with Seiji regarding this before. They agreed that they would save their earnings for their children's future, and when the time comes, she will just quit her job. After all, it is difficult for her to give up the career that she spent seven years building. She only needs a little push to reach the peak that she had dreamed of before.

If she could reach it, then she would have done everything that she'd wanted in her life. All that will be left is to spend time with her family.

'I want to have a daughter.'

Suddenly, she had a random thought. Whenever she sees the father-son pair having a secret of their own, she became envious.

With this thought, Seiji's fate of being sleepless for the entire week was sealed.

****

The time is ripe.

Because I could not hold back my excitement, I randomly used the outlet from my school to fill up my cheat. As I had expected, it became usable again.

"Twenty days…"

In total, I spent a total of 200 days and accumulated 10,000 volts to charge my cheat. The familiar feeling of itchiness is here again, though I held off from using it. The temptation is here, but I intend to use it as a verification of what plagued my mind for the past 200 days.

When I used it on 'Investment', I earned the knowledge of this world's future, albeit in economics. My processing speed also increased. However, what if I used it for physical exercise?

'Modify the practice time of physical training to ten years later?'

What I got in return is my cheat transferring this strange thought in me. This confirms that I can have my physical training ten years later. But then, what would happen to me? Would it simply be an increase in my physical capabilities just like my first cheat usage or would I be affected drastically? As in, my body would grow to that of an eighteen-year-olds.

If it's like that, I could not let it happen. I don't want any strange occurrences to happen to me to keep my new life. I don't want to mess it up badly. Being a genius is not as absurd as seeing your child grow up ten more years in a single moment.

Hence, I thought of another object to use this cheat on later.

"N-nobu-kun?"

Gotou-san…no. Bocchi-chan's words woke me up from my contemplation. I don't know what happened, but our relationship suddenly became closer twenty days ago. I could not understand how it came to this, but she's letting me call her by a nickname now (she heard my mumblings from before).

There are some things that you would not come to understand in the vast universe.

"Ah. I remembered something bad just now."

"Is that so..? That happens to me too…" She replied.

Eh? What does she mean? Is it her deep contemplation and her funny looks while that is happening? Maybe it is the 'something bad' part…

"I-I still remember how I b-botched my introduction on the first day!"

The corner of my mouth shook.

'She is helpless…'

Is her anxiety bad for her to keep remembering the bad and embarrassing things that happened to her? Now, I'm losing my confidence to make that said anxiety disappear.

"Anyways, where did you need help again?"

"I-it's here."

I began helping Bocchi-chan with her 3rd Grader's Math assignment. My now 12th Grade arithmetic is simply overkilled for this…